South American and General Steam Navigation Co.

The Fleets

The South American & General Steam Navigation Company was founded in Liverpool in 1852, to run a fleet of iron screw steamers to South America. Orders were placed with John Laird of Birkenhead for two 1,100 tons steamers, the BRASILEIRA and LUSITANIA and with John Reid & Co. of Port Glasgow for a similar ship, the OLINDA. A wooden paddle steamer intended for feeder service in South America, was also built by John Laird and named ARGENTINA. The ARGENTINA was wrecked in the River Plate in December 1853 and the OLINDA was wrecked on 26 January 1854 near Holyhead a few hours after the start of her second voyage with no loss of life.

The BAHIANA joined the fleet in 1854 and two ships intended for the Feeder service in South America, the LA PLATA and MENAI were also completed that year. Following the loss of the OLINDA, two new steamers were ordered from John Laird of Birkenhead, the IMPERADOR and IMPERATRIZ, which were launched on 13 July and 7 October 1854 respectively.

At the end of 1854 the BRASILEIRA and LUSITANIA were sold to Messageries Imperiales (later Messageries Maritimes), France. The BAHIANA and IMPERATRIZ were taken by the British Government as Crimean war transports and the IMPERADOR followed suit later on. The surviving ships were sold after the Crimean War, BAHIANA to Messageries Imperiales and the IMPERADOR and IMPERATRIZ to Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (CGT), and the service was never resumed.

Many thanks to Henk Jungerius and Ted Finch for their assistance in collecting this data. The following list was extracted from various sources. This is not an all inclusive list but should only be used as a guide.

Routes

• Liverpool-Pernambuco-Bahia-Rio de Janeiro

Ships

Note: * denotes paddle steamer in the table below.